


The Gift

by Mother_North



Series: Spectrum: Lighter shade [7]
Category: Figure Skating RPF, Music RPF, Sports RPF, X JAPAN
Genre: Admiration, Creativity, Feels, Inspiration, Introspection, Longing, M/M, Psychology, romantic, unspoken feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 05:04:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20540576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mother_North/pseuds/Mother_North
Summary: Toshl takes a brush to paint.





	The Gift

**Author's Note:**

> RPF disclaimer: this is a work of fiction and it is not meant to offend anyone. It is a product of author’s imagination only. All thoughts, actions and emotions described below have nothing to do with reality.

**

Huge, vast canvas reminds ToshI of the ice itself. He doesn’t consider himself a painter, his tool to convey emotions has always been his voice. Yet now, he can’t help but think that it is the right time to take the brush and paint and to let his vocal chords fall silent.

ToshI is overflown with images, his neurons supplying imagination with fragments of _him_: _his_ looks, _his_ presence and the way it left its trace seemingly in each cell of ToshI’s being.

ToshI takes the brush and squeezes his eyelids shut, exactly the way he did while singing – simply not to be blinded by _his_ shining; beneath the dark lenses of his sunglasses, when projectors spilt blood on the pristine smooth surface of the show rink. At times he struggled to continue singing because of the lump in his throat.

When it comes to Yuzuru it often is _too much_: one can’t look away, one can’t claim his soul back, one can’t go on living without _him_.

ToshI knows what obsession is and the moment his eyes catch the sight of a delicate figure moving across the ice gracefully, he realizes that he is inevitably lost. It is difficult to explain – the overwhelming stream of raw emotions flooding his sensitive soul of an artist, breaking all boundaries and making him shiver form head to toe. He resurrects Yuzuru’s performance in his mind: the tiniest movement of his fingertips, the tilt of his head, each body line and every breath taken.

_He_ is elegance, _he_ is grace and ToshI knows full well that he has to capture it somehow, this fragile moment of unity between them, which only two artistic souls can truly share and understand. Music is bonding them and the choreography transforms the unseen thread in between through motion. It is beautiful and magical and the worst of ToshI’s fears is that too soon it is bound to come to an end: the notes silently vanishing into nothingness and _the song_ of Yuzuru’s movements coming to a halt. It pains ToshI severely and as their last performance ends in Toyama he suddenly feels _empty, _completely _spent_. He desperately needs to find a way to fill the void inside, to make the hole in his soul cease existing.

…A splatter of blood-red on the pitch-black expanse, along with some sparkles of pure white across the canvas to complete the picture.

It is extremely hard to paint emotions, especially those that are better to be hidden beneath the surface, staying safely dormant.

Yuzuru is an erupting volcano of scorching passion and the rhinestones on the black part of his costume remind ToshI of stars scattered across the night sky. He is fascinated, momentarily overtaken by the desire _to touch; _it makes him sweat profusely but he orders himself to concentrate on the lyrics instead. He has to.

It is impossible to forget the otherworldly glow of Yuzuru’s face, as if being lit up from the inside, when he was bowing to the adoring audience after his performance; the finest porcelain, which ToshI couldn’t help but yearn to remain unmarred – the innate _purity_ that is not to be sullied.

He puts Yuzuru on an invisible pedestal the first evening he is watching him skate. ToshI is too scared to think of his past and of how his new fixation might echo with the darkest pages of his life, those he’d better pretend never existed in the first place.

_The cult._

The cult of _Yuzuru Hanyu_ now being in full force, clutching at his heart viciously. Toshl keeps on repeating that it is _not_ _the same_, far from it – Yuzuru heals, Yuzuru brings beauty into existence and makes the world a better place with the power of his art, with the astonishing ability of his talent to transform even the simplest of moves into intricate incantations of his spell.

If it is not magic, then ToshI doesn’t know what magic is.

Memories are alive and vivid in his consciousness, blazing hot and red, branded on the underside of his beating heart and his pulse races as soon as he lets himself dive into their welcoming, soothing embrace.

_ Yuzunuma._

They are not _crystal_, they are of flesh and blood in fact, achingly real and Yuzuru always reigns supreme in them.

Toshl got used to seeing Yuzuru’s pale face the moment he closes his eyes. He feels young again, as if spring has come into his life – wild and untamed, blood running quicker in his veins, colours getting brighter and days livelier.

Is it what real love is? Maddening and poisonous and unbidden…

Toshl wanders day and night in his bitter-sweet thoughts, navigating through complicated and confusing feelings, lost and overwhelmed by the emotions Yuzuru has evoked.

He wants to take a deep breath and scream of his love for the whole wide world to hear but he bites his tongue instead, the distinctive taste of copper bringing him back to the ground.

I can only worship _him_ in my dreams. He must never know, he must never find out.

Toshl’s hands are crimson from the paint and he decides that more _black_ needs to be added.

_Isn’t it your favourite colour?_

Toshl keeps on painting and painting and painting and the slightest tremor running through his body seems nothing but natural; his nerve-endings set aflame, head spinning from all of the images he has to find a way to materialize on the canvas in front of him.

Is this canvas not a newly-erected altar of his? Is it not the form his desire of having Yuzuru has taken shape of?

Toshl’s nights are filled with forbidden longing which he pours into creativity, the only safe route to follow, the sanest trail there is among the raging flames of lust licking at his loins.

Toshl hates the feeble voice at the periphery of his mind, whispering to him without a mercy words that wound and pierce, making his eyes sting from unshed tears:

_worthless…weak…despisible…dependable…talentless…_

“I am not!” Toshl growls to his own reflection in the mirror, chasing his inner demons away.

“You are not,” Yuzuru whispers back when they embrace briefly, a reassuring and a comforting presence of someone who knows what true pain is, of someone who can understand him without a word and make the darkness go away with the brightness of his dashing smile.

Each stroke of brush Toshl fills with his sincere gratitude and admiration.

Yuzuru has saved him by channeling his creative energy to make Toshl feel reborn and renewed..._reawakened_ and brimming with vitality…

It is the most precious gift one could ever ask for.

_The gift of life._

Toshl is going to keep it close to his heart for as long as he lives.

There is the light at the end of the tunnel.

_Yuzuru is his light._

**


End file.
